


farming and other backbreaking things

by poochooey



Category: Dragon Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:08:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poochooey/pseuds/poochooey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver takes care of the farm while Garrett fools around and Father only gets sicker. Naturally, Carver does this with no small amount of resentment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	farming and other backbreaking things

**Author's Note:**

> fic request for spicyshimmy!

_ Someone  _ needs to look after the land while Garrett’s pissing around in town or napping the day away. That someone just so happens to be Carver. 

He knows he does a better job of it, anyway, but it doesn’t make the taste of sweat any less salty, the feeling any less bitter.

Father’s sick, only getting sicker, and Mother’s busy taking care of him and the rest of the family. Carver’s the one who brings home a satchel of fresh potatoes with dirt caked on the skin. He’s the one who chops the wood that isn’t rotting and brings it in for the coming cold nights, and he’s the one who stocks the pantry with onions and beets and other vegetables while Mother wipes Father’s forehead with a washcloth in the other room. She doesn’t thank him when he passes by, but she does smile, a smile that doesn’t make Carver feel any better because it’s so tired.

Father used to say _thank you_. He used to be the only one who did. These days all he does—all he _can_ do—is lie in bed and shrink into nothing, his face and beard graying, his cheeks and eyes turning into sunken  shadows. The hot sun beating Carver’s back with invisible hands, the sweat dripping down his temples and his spine, even dripping down between his damn legs—it doesn’t let him think about it. 

Any minute spent thinking about his sore arms, the lower ache in his back, the twinge in his calf that Father used to massage whenever it hurt is a minute spent _not_ thinking about Father’s beard getting longer and more unruly each day.

“I thought I’d grow it,” he told them, and chuckled, even though Carver knew it wasn’t that. _Everyone_ knew it wasn’t that, and Father knew they knew. Mother used to shave it for him, but these days he doesn’t want that, either.

So Carver digs up vegetables and milks the cow and Mother doesn’t even have to ask anymore, because it becomes a habit. 

“Pull your own damn weight,” Carver mutters when Garrett slides into the bunk under his one night, and Garrett doesn’t even have the decency to _answer_ him, so he repeats it.

“Quit being so angry and go to sleep, Carver,” Garrett replies that time, yawns, and buries himself deeper into the sheets. Carver doesn’t understand why; it’s summertime and hot as bloody can be. 

*

Carver gets a sunburn on his nose and shoulders from working straight through noon, shucking his shirt off when it’s too hot, and when he passes by Father’s room Father beckons him inside.

“You look… _darker_ , Carver,” he says, and the rest of Carver’s face goes red, too. “Don’t work yourself too hard. I know it might be a lot of pressure when—”

“I know,” Carver interrupts. “Thanks. Still some more work I should get to.”

Father doesn’t say anything, but he does pull back the hand that was reaching out for Carver’s, and that makes Carver feel worst of all.

*

Today Carver pulls up weeds. They’re growing all over Mother’s herbs and Carver swears there’s got to be some lyrium in the soil, because it takes all his strength to pull out a fistful.

He’s busy yanking out the last one when Garrett appears in the back doorway, a strand of wheat between his teeth, the family dog faithfully by his side. 

It always liked Garrett better.

“Gardening now, Carver?” Garrett asks, picking his teeth with the stem and throwing it away. “Are you going to cook, too?”

“Shove it,” Carver says, and Garrett allows himself a little guffaw before he lets himself back inside. Carver calls him a tit and anything else that comes to mind, but Garrett’s already gone. The last weed is stuck in there good, and Carver pulls his shoulder when he jerks it out. 

Garrett and the dog come back before dinner with two dead rabbits. Garrett hands mother one, and Carver has to pry the other slobbery bit of meat out of the mabari’s jaws, its drool leaking all over Carver’s hand.

“Disgusting,” Carver says.

“No one is forcing you to have any, brother,” Garrett replies. 

“ _Boys_ ,” Mother warns them. “Help me with dinner.”

*

Mother takes Father’s food to his room. Carver saw it—it wasn’t meat, just some broth. Garrett lets the dog lick his plate and then leans forward on his forearms, his palm under one cheek.

“You look cute with that sunburn,” he says, then adds as he pushes himself back from the dinner table, “like a blushing lady.”

Carver throws a piece of bread at him that the dog catches in midair. It whuffs, gives Carver a look of disapproval, and lies back down to eat.  

*

“Are you _sure_ you’re not working too hard?” Father asks him the next week. He’s feeling well enough to sit on the stoop at the back door, looking out into the fields. Mother brought him out here, but Father has a cane that he’s been using to get around, too. As much as Carver prefers it to seeing Father in bed, the sight still makes him feel sick.

“No,” Carver begins, then shakes his head. “You know,” he says, unable to resist, “maybe if you made _Garrett_ work, too—”

Father shakes his head, too. The movement’s the same, but Carver’s reminded once again at how they look nothing alike. 

“I don’t want _you_ working on the fields, either, Carver,” he says. “I want you boys and Bethany to have a normal, happy childhood. What kind of a childhood is picking potatoes all day, every day?”

Carver stiffens. “You want I should just _abandon_ the farm?”

Father shakes his head again. “Not abandon, just live your life. I was thinking of hiring a farmhand. I have a few coin I was saving for a time like this…”

Carver wants to tell him that Garrett would probably end up fucking him, too, that they wouldn’t _need_ one if it wasn’t just Carver all the time, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Carver,” Father says, “if you frown that hard your face is going to stay that way.”

“I’m _not_ a child,” Carver says, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. “Don’t treat me like one.”

“You’re right,” Father agrees. “You’re not.”

He doesn’t say anything after that, just watches Carver do his work until Carver winces after he drags the hoe through the dirt, stopping to rub his shoulder.

“Come here,” Father says, and Carver, already feeling like a pile of cow dung for the way he’s been treating him, goes quietly. He sits beside Father on the stoop and Father reaches out again. This time, Carver doesn’t leave, and Father touches right where it hurts, like he knew. His skin cools with healing magic and Carver closes his eyes.

He feels the sun beating on his eyelids instead of his back, on his forearms and in his hair. It’s not too hot because of Father’s hand, and his shoulder starts to feel _so_ much better. He flexes and stretches and Father massages the muscle before patting his back and putting his hand back in his lap.

“See?” he says, his face sunken and his beard grey but his eyes still twinkling. “I can be useful.”

“Thanks,” Carver mumbles, tasting something sour in the back of his throat.

“Would you like me to get your sunburn, too?” Father asks.

Carver makes a face. “Garrett says it makes me look _cute_.”

Father laughs. “Only in the manliest of ways.”

Carver wants to hug him, to cling to him and bury his face in Father’s neck, to tell him that he loves him and _please_ , to _please_ get better, for all of their sakes. Without him, the farm’s going to go to shit. The family’s going to go to shit. _He’s_ going to go to shit.

“Better get back to work,” he says. 

“Hope you don’t mind if I watch you a little while longer,” Father replies, “the fresh air just feels so nice.”

Carver rubs one of his eyes. It was itching, for some reason. 

“No,” he says, and Father sits out with him until the day’s work is done, scratching the dog’s ears when it sits beside him, until Garrett comes home and sits beside him, too.

“So hardworking, my little brother,” Garrett says when Carver comes by, dropping the sacks at his feet. He reaches up and grabs one. “Of course, not hardworking _enough_. I think he needs my help from now on. Don’t you agree, Father?”

“Don’t work too hard,” Father says, and smiles to himself, hiding it behind his cane.  


End file.
